'Skankier than last year'

[hoosier]

'Skankier than last year'
An inter-sorority e-mail newsletter at Northwestern (Evanston, IL) offers candid thoughts on rush

By Jennifer Leopoldt
January 09, 2003

Emotions run high during sorority rush, but as a recent newsletter showed, not all of the sentiment is positive.

A Panhellenic-sponsored group's e-mail newsletter sent out to all sorority members in late November asked women to give their views on the upcoming rush process.

The published and recirculated responses by anonymous sorority members were sometimes less than upbeat:

"I really hate freshmen. They're fucking morons," read one.

"The freshmen girls this year are much skankier than last year's freshmen," said another.

The caustic comments surprised some sorority members, said Nancy Steinmetz, an Alpha Chi Omega representative to emPOWER, the group that sent out the newsletter.

"A lot of girls didn't agree with some of the things that were said in the newsletter and didn't think it was a good representation of the Greek system," said Steinmetz, a Weinberg sophomore.

Other comments included,

"Rush sucks."

"Freshman girls are the most obnoxious creatures on earth, if we didn't need them for self-propagation, I'd say screw this whole rush thing [sic]."

emPOWER Director Rebecca Stamey-White stressed that many of the other quotes in the November newsletter were positive.

"I just think it's important to know that only two or three quotes out of 25 were negative," said the Weinberg senior. "The newsletter was overwhelmingly positive about rush in general."

The other sorority members in the newsletter praise rush as a rare opportunity to "meet such a diverse and interesting group of women" and as a time when the Greek community promotes "its ideals of Greek tradition, sisterhood and spirit."

Panhel President Francesca Rodriguez said the negative comments are a natural reaction to the difficult rush process.

"Recruitment is just a very time-consuming thing for all of us," said Rodriguez, a Communication senior. "At NU, anything that takes up a lot of time is going to get a bad rap."

Rodriguez said Panhel officers discussed the newsletter at a fall meeting in the context of ways to keep up good attitudes during recruitment. The newsletter is run independently of Panhel.

"This was more of a reminder that we need to keep up the positive things," Rodriguez said. "We didn't look on it as a problem."

emPOWER officials said they had no plans to change the newsletter's format and plan to take on other controversial issues such as whether fraternities are treated more leniently than sororities.

Stamey-White said the newsletter is meant as a private and anonymous forum for the sorority system.

"It was a way for us to reflect on our own community and realize that there are diverse views, just as there is diversity among the individuals in the community," Stamey-White said.

But emPOWER Assistant Director Lyde Esposito, a Weinberg senior, said subsequent emPOWER newsletters will include responses from more sororities to make sure future e-mails are more representative. In the controversial rush e-mail, the majority of quotes came from three or four houses.

"We knew rush was a significant part of sorority life, so we knew we'd get a lot of responses to the topic," she said.

Good or bad, the newsletter did not make an impact everywhere.

Pi Beta Phi rush chairwoman Julie Lissner said she had not heard of the e-mail, but said sorority rush usually is seen as a positive event.

"It's a time where a sorority really comes together and works for a single thing," said Lissner, a Medill junior.

[Tom Earp]

Am finally getting to this thread, Hoosier, dan, I would pu;; a;; pf the the Greeks off odf the campuis

Never mind am falling asleep at jeyboard!

[astroAPhi]

Ok, who was dumb enough to let those emails become public? A few dumb people make us all look bad, so let's publish it!

In case you can't tell, I'm pretty disgusted by some of the comments that these Greek women made.

[Peaches-n-Cream]

The title of this thread cracked me up.

[nucutiepie]

As a member of the Northwestern Greek Community, I was appalled first of all at the comments made by these particular girls and secondly that our campus newspaper, which is widely considered one of the best in the country, would actually print this letter. Worse than the fact that they printed this letter is the fact that they printed this letter in the issue that came out on the first day of Sorority Recruitment. It served only to perpetuate unfair Greek stereotypes and further hurt a system. This is the second issue of its kind this year; at the beginning of the year, some boys in a certain fraternity released a book entitled "Purple: The Must Have student companion for happy, healthy living at Northwestern." While Purple was in some respects an excellent guide to life at Northwestern, it also served to publicize and perpetuate greek stereotypes, and it didn't help that many freshmen girls used this book as their Bible when it came to making judgements about Northwestern sororities.

In the section on Greeks, they provided some basic info about each house (when founded, history, etc) and then offered two perspectives on it, one from a "fan's" perspective, one from a "haters" perspective. What follows is a quote from the book, changed only to omit the names of organizations:

A fan of [XYZ] might say:
Being one of the more prominent sororities at Northwestern, XYZs have a great social presence. Much like any other mainstream house, the girls of XYZ can be found anywhere, the arts, athletics, campus organizations, and always around the social scene. Although they are a mainstream house, XYZs generally do not posses the elitist behavior exhibited by other top-tier houses. Rumor has it that there exists minor divisions among the girls in the house, and that this leads to cliquish behavior. But regardless of such trivial and rumored characteristics, XYZ remains a forerunner among the Northwestern sororities. THe girls are beautiful; the house is immaculate; and the sisterhood is strong; overall, the best sorority on campus!
A hater of [XYZ] might say:
ALthough these girls have conned the university into perceiving them as good girls, at least in comparison to ABC, DEF, and GHI, the women of XYZ have the unique ability to screw over anyone who gets in their way, especially men. If you like wearing the pants in relationships, and using your power as an attractive woman as a cruel weapon in your search for fame and fortune, this is the house for you!


(Nucutiepie again)
Between the article and this book, there have been some real problems with Greek stereotypes at NU this year, and I think its really unfortunate, especially given that I think the NU greek scene is incredibly diverse and inclusive and that NU greeks have a tremendous amount to offer. To my sorority's credit, the email the article was written about was NOT sent out to my sorority's listserv, as our emPOWER reps were disgusted by the negative quotes (which mostly came from members of one or two houses - its so unfortunate that those people make all of us look really really bad!) Also, our recruitment chairwoman was the last one quoted in the article, and she attempted to put a positive spin on recruitment.

Nevertheless, I am truly ashamed that members of the Greek community of which I am a part made such terrible comments, both in the email and in the book, because comments like that reflect badly on each and every Greek at Northwestern. By and large, NU Greeks, like Greeks everywhere, are a spectacular group of ambitious, involved, hardworking and caring people, but like Greeks everywhere we are forced to confront a tremendous amount of negative publicity. I feel like if there is a lesson to be learned from these two examples, it is that as Greeks, we need to be careful what we say and how we present ourselves, as both the email and the book originated within the Greek community. Bad publicity from the outside is one thing, but bad publicity from within is entirely another, more serious issue.

[Jhawkalum]

What the hell? Some guys in a fraternity actually took the time to write a book to perpetuate stereotypes? They should be kicked out of their fraternities for defacing the entire panhellenic system. It would be great to see some women send out a publication that reads:

The men of XYZ fraternity have to make up for their inadequate dick sizes by making sweeping generalizations about women at Northwestern.

I hope that NO sorority does anything social or philanthropic with these men this next year to show them who really is in charge.

[sigmadiva]

Originally posted by Jhawkalum . It would be great to see some women send out a publication that reads:

The men of XYZ fraternity have to make up for their inadequate dick sizes by making sweeping generalizations about women at Northwestern.

I hope that NO sorority does anything social or philanthropic with these men this next year to show them who really is in charge. [/B]

YOU TELL "EM!!!!!!!!!